Making We the People: Democratic Constitutional Founding in Postwar Japan and South Korea

330 Pages·2015·2.99 MB·English

by  Chaihark Hahm, Sung Ho Kim

Making We the People

What does it mean to say that it is “We the People” who “ordain and establish” a
constitution? Who are those sovereign people, and how can they do so?
Interweaving history and theory, constitutional scholar Chaihark Hahm and
political theorist Sung Ho Kim attempt to answer these perennial questions by
revisiting the constitutional politics of postwar Japan and Korea. Together, these
experiences demonstrate the infeasibility of the conventional assumption that
there is a clearly bounded sovereign “people” prior to constitution-making that
stands apart from both outside influence and troubled historical legacies. The
authors argue that “We the People” only emerges through a deeply transformative
politics of constitutional founding and, as such, a democratic constitution and its
putative author are mutually constitutive. Highly original and genuinely multidis-
ciplinary, this book will be of interest to democratic theorists, scholars of compar-
ative constitutionalism as well as observers of ongoing constitutional debates in
Japan and Korea.
Chaihark Hahm is Professor of Constitutional Law at Yonsei University Law
School (Seoul, Korea) and an editorial board member of I•CON: International
Journal of Constitutional Law. He holds law degrees from Yale, Columbia, and
Harvard.
Sung Ho Kim is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Social Science
Research Institute at Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea). He is the author of
Max Weber’s Politics of Civil Society, which was also published by Cambridge
University Press.

Comparative Constitutional Law and Policy

Series Editors
Tom Ginsburg, University of Chicago
Zachary Elkins, University of Texas at Austin
Ran Hirschl, University of Toronto
Comparative constitutional law is an intellectually vibrant field that encompasses an
increasingly broad array of approaches and methodologies. This series collects analyt-
ically innovative and empirically grounded work from scholars of comparative con-
stitutionalism across academic disciplines. Books in the series include theoretically
informed studies of single constitutional jurisdictions, comparative studies of consti-
tutional law and institutions, and edited collections of original essays that respond to
challenging theoretical and empirical questions in the field.
Volumes in the Series
Comparative Constitutional Design edited by Tom Ginsburg (2012)
Consequential Courts: Judicial Roles in Global Perspective edited by Diana Kapiszewski,
Gordon Silverstein, and Robert A. Kagan (2013)
Social and Political Foundations of Constitutions edited by Denis J. Galligan and Mila
Versteeg (2013)
Presidential Legislation in India: The Law and Practice of Ordinances by Shubhankar
Dam (2014)
Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes edited by Tom Ginsburg and Alberto
Simpser (2014)
Social Difference and Constitutionalism in Pan-Asia edited by Susan H. Williams (2014)
Constitutionalism in Asia in the Early Twenty-First Century edited by Albert Chen (2014)
Constitutions and Religious Freedom by Frank Cross (2015)
Reputation and Judicial Tactics: A Theory of National and International Courts by Shai
Dothan (2015)
International Courts and the Performance of International Agreements: A General
Theory with Evidence from the European Union by Clifford Carrubba and Matthew
Gabel (2015)
Magna Carta and its Modern Legacy edited by Robert Hazell and James Melton (2015)
Unstable Constitutionalism edited by Mark Tushnet and Madhav Khosla (2015)
Radical Deprivation on Trial by Cesar Rodríguez-Garavito and Diana
Rodríguez-Franco (2015)

Making We the People

Democratic Constitutional Founding in
Postwar Japan and South Korea
CHAIHARK HAHM and SUNG HO KIM
Yonsei University
32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA
Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.
It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107018822
© Chaihark Hahm and Sung Ho Kim 2015
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2015
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hahm, Chaihark, 1963– author.
Making we the people : democratic constitutional founding in postwar Japan
and South Korea / Chaihark Hahm, Yonsei University, Seoul; Sung Ho Kim,
Yonsei University, Seoul.
pages cm. – (Comparative constitutional law and policy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-107-01882-2 (hardback)
1. Constitutional history – Japan. 2. Constitutional history – South Korea.
I. Kim, Sung Ho, 1966– author. II. Title.
KNC527.H358 2015
342.519502′9–dc23 2015020956
ISBN 978-1-107-01882-2 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs
for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not
guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Tai Young Hahm (1873–1964) and Rin Suh Kim (1894–1964)
Patriots for the Nation
Pastors to the People
Founders of the Republic